Houston Mayor Has Big Plans for Crime Crackdown

6/15/2006 Houston -- Sick of rising crime rates and a negative report from the FBI, Houston Mayor Bill White said his new strategy will take the fight to the criminals. His plan will be revealed later this week, but already the FBI said this week the murder rate in Houston has jumped 23 percent.

When you look at the overall crime picture in the city, one-fourth of all the serious crime --  the rapes, murders, aggravated assaults and robberies  -- occur in southwest Houston. The Houston Police Department has beefed up its patrol in the area, but starting this weekend, the mayor has plans to take it one step further.

The Houston Police Department has beefed up its patrol in the area, but starting this weekend, the mayor has plans to take it one step further. “I am pretty excited about it. There has been a lot of work that is gone into it in the last several weeks,” Mayor White said. “We haven’t been talking about it because its success depends on catching bad guys in some of these apartment complexes flat-footed.”  

Houston police officers have been going undercover for weeks, arresting thousands. But starting this weekend, the mayor and chief will unveil an unprecedented show of force at five southwest Houston apartment complexes: one in the 3700 block of Hillcroft, 8000 block of Creekbend, and in the 8100, 8900 and 10700 blocks of Fondren.

“I told the chief to use whatever amount of force is necessary, because districts 17, 18 and 19 -- the crime stats are still unacceptable,” Mayor White said. Each of the five complexes will have at least 10 uniformed HPD officers present 24 hours a day, something that has never been done here.

(Contributed by KHOU)